Kohlrabi looks like a turnip but is really a swollen cabbage stem
Its German name means cabbage turnip, and its common English nicknames call it a turnip too, yet kohlrabi is no turnip at all. Breeders coaxed wild cabbage into growing a fat, almost spherical stem. Sliced raw, a young one can be as crisp and juicy as an apple, just far less sweet.
Kohlrabi is the same species as broccoli, cauliflower, kale and Brussels sprouts: all were selected from wild cabbage, Brassica oleracea. What sets it apart is artificial selection for growth from the side of the stem, producing the rounded bulb. Its botanical group name, Gongylodes, comes from the Greek for round. The name kohlrabi joins German Kohl, cabbage, with a Swiss German form of the word for turnip.
The botanist Mattioli gave the first European written account in 1554, noting it had only recently reached Italy. Within decades it was grown across Austria, Germany, England, Spain and around the eastern Mediterranean. Plants mature in about 55 to 60 days and then hold in the ground for up to a month. Most turn woody once they grow much past 5 to 10 centimetres, the exception being the Gigante cultivar, which stays tender even when large. Kohlrabi also thrives hydroponically without clogging nutrient channels.
Purple varieties are purple only on the surface; inside, every kohlrabi is pale yellow. Two tough fibrous layers surround the edible core and barely soften with cooking, so peeling leaves less food than the bulb suggests. Raw kohlrabi is about 91 per cent water, and a 100 gram portion provides 27 calories and roughly two thirds of the daily value of vitamin C. The taste recalls broccoli stem or cabbage heart, only milder and sweeter.
Every part is edible, including leaves that cook like collards but more slowly. In Kashmir, where it is called monji, it is among the most commonly cooked vegetables, served with its leaves in a light soup alongside rice. Cypriots sprinkle it with salt and lemon as an appetiser, Vietnamese cooks put it in spring rolls and thinly sliced salads, and some varieties are grown simply to feed cattle.
Source: Kohlrabi
